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Tesla has been accused of exaggerating EV driving range in the past, but it’s now facing allegations that it’s trying to minimize complaints about performance. Reuterssources claim Tesla had a secret “Diversion Team” in the Las Vegas area that aims to cancel range-related service appointments. If a customer complained that the range didn’t live up to marketing claims, advisors in the team would tell owners that Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) range figures were just predictions, and that battery degradation would reduce range. The unit initially ran remote diagnostics and called customers, but wouldn’t share non-range issues and eventually stopped testing altogether.

The aim was reportedly to both save money (about $1,000 per appointment, according to managers) and reduce strain on service centers already facing long appointment queues. Tesla updated its mobile app to remove appointment options for users asking about range, and instead gave them the choice of asking a company representative to call.

The complaints don’t stem from technical flaws, the insiders claim. Instead, Tesla supposedly began tinkering with range estimates roughly a decade ago to exaggerate figures when an EV was fully charged. Cars would only begin showing more accurate range numbers below a 50 percent charge. The company also gave vehicles a 15-mile range buffer when the estimate reached zero, much as combustion engine cars still have fuel in the tank when the gauge reads “empty.”

It’s not certain if Tesla continues to rely on code to exaggerate range, if the report is accurate. Tesla has disbanded its public relations team and isn’t available for comment. However, the company has already faced criticism and legal trouble over range concerns. The EPA asked Tesla to slightly reduce its range estimates from the 2020 model year onward, and South Korea fined Tesla $2.2 million in January for allegedly failing to disclose that range can drop in cold weather.

Tesla isn’t alone in embellishing range, but may be worse than most. The standards body SAE International recently published a study indicating that EVs typically fall 12.5 percent short of their official range in highway driving. One of the co-authors, Gregory Pannone, tells Reuters that Tesla’s shortfall was a much higher 26 percent. Brands like Ford, Mercedes and Porsche also offer more conservative estimates by using an EPA formula instead of running extra tests. 

Elon Musk’s firm isn’t necessarily cheating, as Pannone explains. Instead, it may be exploiting EPA range procedures more aggressively than its peers. If true, though, that’s still problematic for buyers who might never come close to the range they expected.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/tesla-allegedly-formed-a-team-to-quash-driving-range-complaints-164750696.html?src=rss 

It’s been two months since The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdomknocked our socks off, so if you’ve saved Hyrule and are looking for something else to play, Nintendo may have you covered. The company just dropped two classic Zelda titles onto its Nintendo Switch Online platform.

The games include The Legend of Zelda: Oracle of Seasons and The Legend of Zelda: Oracle of Ages, both released for the Game Boy Color way back in 2001. Despite sharing similar names and original release dates, these are separate titles with unique power ups, gimmicks, overworlds, NPCs, dungeons and more, though they do connect in certain spoilery ways.

Both of these classics are top-down adventures in the style of The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past and feature charming pixel-based graphics of the era. These are the original releases and have not been remade in any way, so you won’t get the same graphical flourishes seen in 2019’s remake of The Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening. However, that remake was $60 and these are (sort of) free. Also, many consider this pair to be some of the best games in the franchise’s storied history.

You need a Nintendo Online subscription to play both games, which costs $20 per year or $4 per month, with a seven day free trial available for newbies. You don’t, however, need one of those fancy Expansion Pack subscriptions. For the price, you also get access to plenty of other iconic Zelda titles from the NES and SNES days.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/nintendo-drops-two-classic-zelda-titles-for-switch-online-subscribers-160801831.html?src=rss 

Researchers at NYU’s Tandon School of Engineering and Grossman School of Medicine have created an app to help people with visual impairments navigate New York City’s subway system. Commute Booster uses a smartphone camera to recognize relevant signs along a transit route, guiding the user to their destination while ignoring nonessential signs and posters.

Commute Booster is designed for the “middle mile,” where passengers trawl through turnstiles, busy passageways and terminals to stay on the correct route. The app combines general transit feed specification (GTFS), a standardized and publicly available database about public transportation routes, with optical character recognition (OCR) to interpret signs and guide the user accordingly. “By integrating these two components, Commute Booster provides real-time feedback to users regarding the presence or absence of relevant navigation signs within the field of view of their phone camera during their journey,” an NYU press release published today reads.

A study that used the app on three NYC stations — Jay Street-Metrotech, Dekalb Avenue and Canal Street — had a 97 percent success rate in identifying the relevant signs needed to reach a mock destination. It managed to “read” the signs at a distance and from various angles expected from a typical commute.

“The ‘middle mile’ often involves negotiating a complex network of underground corridors, ticket booths and subway platforms. It can be treacherous for people who cannot rely on sight,” said John-Ross Rizzo, MD, an NYU professor (and co-author of the paper) known for his engineering work that helps people with disabilities. “Most GPS-enabled navigation apps address ‘first’ and ‘last’ miles only, so they fall short of meeting the needs of blind or low-vision commuters. Commute Booster is meant to fill that gap.”

Next is a planned human subject study to see how well the app holds up in real-world navigation scenarios. After that, the researchers hope to make it available for public use “in the near term.” Commute Booster is a simple smartphone app using a modern handset’s standard sensors, but that means users need to hold their phones’ cameras up as they navigate New York’s subway system — still well worth it, but less than an ideal setup. One can easily imagine this or a similar app running on AR smartglasses if or when they ever find broader consumer appeal. (Some companies have already tried.)

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/researchers-app-could-help-people-with-visual-impairments-navigate-the-nyc-subway-163456689.html?src=rss 

It didn’t take long for Sony to cross another PlayStation 5 milestone. The company confirms it has sold over 40 million PS5 consoles since the system’s debut in November 2020. That’s roughly 8 million units sold since the start of the year. That unsurprisingly doesn’t top last year’s holiday sales, when Sony moved 7.1 million PS5s in one quarter. However, the company says inventory is finally “well-stocked” and keeping up with demand — you might not have to wait for stores to get fresh supplies.

The PS5 reached the 10 million mark in its first eight months. However, it also had the benefit of launching during a holiday when many people were stuck at home during the early pandemic — it became Sony’s fastest-selling console to date. The tech giant is now is getting closer to that pace even in the post-holiday period, when demand tends to drop.

The company had shipped over 117 million PS4s as of early 2022, and nearly 157 million PS2s as of 2013. Nintendo, meanwhile had moved nearly 123 million Switches as of the end of 2022. Those leads aren’t surprising given the extra years of sales involved, but they suggest Sony has a while to go before it eclipses both its all-time best figures as well as the current-gen competition.

How that momentum changes isn’t clear. A redesigned or upgraded console isn’t guaranteed to arrive in the near future. At the same time, the game catalog is improving. More PlayStation games are PS5-only, including upcoming blockbusters like Spider-Man 2. Sony is also going into late 2023 with a few potential system-selling accessories, including PlayStation VR2 and the Project Q streaming device. There’s no guarantee Sony will continue to enjoy rosy sales, but the ingredients are there for a strong year.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/sony-has-sold-over-40-million-ps5-consoles-150040065.html?src=rss